


Career Day

by sidana



Series: The Peter Black Stories [1]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 15:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidana/pseuds/sidana
Summary: Peter is forced to reexamine his world view as he recovers from his injuries





	Career Day

Disclaimer- not my characters, not my universe, and I'll put them back when I'm done playing with them

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Negative. It would have been nice to say that he breathed a huge sigh of relief when the seven day test results had come back, but they were trying to wean him off the morphine, and heavy breathing still hurt too much. Cherry had told him that there could still be false negatives on the three and five day tests, but that the seven day results were definitive.

The weird thing was that a part of him had come to think that if it hadn't turned out that way, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. Weird because the lycanthropes were supposed to be the bad guys. He had thought he was sure of that. He'd seen it with his own eyes in a way that he hoped few other people would ever have to see. He had fully supported the varmint laws, would have kept voting to keep them in place when he got old enough to vote if he lived in one of those kinds of states. And yet he had somehow made peace with it in a way he couldn't just blame on the morphine.

When Ted had briefed him on what to expect in St. Louis, he had been surprised to hear that he was going into a situation where he was going to be working with the monsters. Ted killed them; he didn't play buddy-buddy with the varmints. But then it wasn't Ted going to St. Louis, it was Edward, and Peter was still learning about the differences between the two. Apparently Edward wasn't terribly picky about allies, and Edward expected him to behave in the same manor. Insult the varmints, or treat them with anything less than respect, and Edward was going to put him on a plane back to New Mexico and the training deal between the two of them was null and void when they both got home.

And then he had met the varmints, and discovered they weren't all bad guys after all. Or bad girls in the case of someone like Claudia. The wererats were totally different from the wolf that had killed his father. They were calm and in control of the situation, not creatures that struck out and killed men just because they could. And then there had been Cisco.

The varmints weren't supposed to be someone close to your age, someone you felt like you'd be drinking beer with when you went to a party. They weren't supposed to get the same jokes, or to see the world the same way. It had been a surprise to meet Cisco, and discover how in a lot of ways that Cisco hadn't been much different than he was. Then Cisco had died trying to keep him alive. If he had been a bad guy, he would have let the tiger have both him and Anita. Funny as it sounded, he couldn't see the rats at varmint anymore after that. They had saved Anita when he couldn't do it alone, and that had moved at least the group of them into the good guy column.

Now he understood what they meant when they said you started seeing more and more shades of grey in the world as you got older.

"Good afternoon," Anita's Boyfriend #2 said as he walked into Peter's hospital room, and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"Hey, Micah. You don't have to stay long today. Last test came back negative."

"That's probably a relief then."

"Yeah, it is. From what you've said about them, I wouldn't have gotten along well with the tigers."

"I don't think any independent teenager really would have. What did you mean I don't have to stay?"

"Well if I'm not going to be a tiger, then you don't have a reason to come by here any more."

"But I've got a couple of reasons. First, because you were hurt keeping Anita safe."

"I had to do that. She was the one who saved me. I owed her that."

"Whatever your reasons were, I'm grateful for what you did. And second, because I've liked getting to talk with you. I've enjoyed playing checkers and cards with you when I've visited."

"Only because you won most of the time. But I'm thinking less fuzzy now. Rematch on the checkers?"

"I've got the time. I don't have to be anywhere until four," Micah said, walking to a side table by the small barred window. He eyed a stack of books set next to the checkerboard. "Doing well enough for schoolwork again?"

"Yeah. I guess it was inevitable. Part of the deal with Ted teaching me the job was that I had to stay on track to graduate from high school and keep a B average. Exams are coming up right after Christmas, and Ted's not going to let me use that I was in the hospital as an excuse if I don't do well on those." For all that Peter Black was old enough to be legal, he was also young enough that he could still be finishing up school. So the books had been sent out from New Mexico.

"He's tough on you then?"

"Yeah, but in the end, that's a good thing because the real world sure as hell isn't going to cut you any slack either."

"That's the truth. Do you like your classes?"

"Chemisty's cool because I can see something I learn there being useful in the real world some day. Trig's not so bad, but English class bores the crap out of me."

"Everyone has different interests. Are you still in a regular high school?"

"Yeah. Mom wouldn't go for me getting a GED, or going the night school route. But it's going to be weird going back there."

"Why's that?" Inhuman eyes examined him closely.

"Because the first day back, there will be a huge fuss about some high school basketball game, or graffiti in the bathrooms, or where prom is going to be, or some stupid DARE presentation that everyone there treats like it's hugely important, almost like it's a matter of life and death. But I've seen real life and death, and right now I just can't get excited about the game. It's not like anyone would say yes to me if I asked them to some stupid dance. And I wouldn't want to be hooked on it all the time, but under the right circumstances, I'm starting to think morphine is damn cool.

And back there, I'm still a kid. I'm too young to know what's best for me. Once I really started to get along with Ted, he treated me like I was smart enough to make my own decisions about life. Part of it was probably because he was sucking up to me to get to Mom, and part of it was that I don't think anyone told him how you were supposed to treat teenagers, but still, he took me seriously. He treated me like he believed I was old enough and mature enough to make hard decisions about my life, even when he could have just let Mom take control of the whole hospital thing. Same goes for Anita, except for the sucking up to Mom part. When I came out here, because I was with Ted, or Edward, or whoever he is out there, people assumed I was a professional, and treated me like one. And I liked that.

Then I go back to school, and I've got to pretend to go along when the people in charge think they know everything. And it seems like the best thing I can do is just put my time in during the day, and then spend as much time in the real world with Ted as I can," he said, watching as Micah set up the checkerboard.

"No plans for college then?"

"What, and have more of the same crap as high school? Maybe some classes here and there is they seem relevant to life, but I couldn't stand the whole degree in four years, go football team, highlight of the week is the big keg party kind of life. That's not the right kind of fantasy for me."

"But being Edward's apprentice is the reality then? Reds or black?"

"Gotta go with black," he said making the first move. "For now, there's just so much I can learn from Ted that no one else would teach me."

"And you're happy with life like that?"

"As happy as I could ever be, I guess."

"Sometimes you've just got to follow a different sort of path in life that most people wouldn't understand. I've been there too."

"Thanks for not giving me the same old 'but you need to go to college and enjoy your youth' bullshit," he said, feeling like Micah was solidifying his place on Peter's list of shapeshifters who were not varmints.

Maybe there was still a chance for Becca. She had been young enough not to remember the werewolf, and maybe the attack at Riker's would fade enough in her memory that she still got to do that enjoy your childhood shit. But he couldn't walk in what people saw as the normal world anymore. He had seen and done too much that it wouldn't fade for him. He wasn't sure if he liked Edward's world. It scared him, hurt him, and he wouldn't be surprised if it killed him in the end. And he still wasn't quite sure just what it was that he was supposed to be doing there.

But even with all that had happened, the trip to St. Louis had taught him that, for good or for worse, Edward's world was where he belonged. And as soon as he was out of the hospital, he had to start learning from Ted again. Because the next time he went home to it, he knew he had to be better prepared for it.


End file.
